Redemption 2025

There was a time I didn’t know how far I had wandered.

At first, it was just a few small steps—away from peace, away from purpose, away from the heart of the Shepherd. I didn’t call it rebellion. I called it survival. The terrain of life had grown rough, filled with disappointments and losses too sharp for easy answers. One day blurred into the next, and slowly, I drifted—quietly, steadily—until I couldn’t see home anymore. I couldn’t even hear the others calling.

I didn’t know I was the lost lamb.

But He did.

Through the darkest places, the Shepherd came for me. Not with a shout, not with punishment, not even with demands—but with mercy. With memory. With the sound of grace carried on the wind. I remember moments when I felt something stir in my chest at the sight of a sunrise, or in the sound of an old hymn, or in a kind word that cut through the numbness. That was Him. I see it now.

He never stopped pursuing me.

When I lost my son, I thought the pain would silence everything. A part of me died that day. The shepherd’s voice grew faint under the weight of grief. I wore anger like armor. For years, I wandered further still, all the while convincing myself I was fine. Capable. Standing. But inside, I was lost—aching and unfinished.

And still, He pursued.

He found me in places I never thought He’d go—on the Emmaus road of sorrow, in the Chrysalis of rebirth. Through the testimonies of others, through gentle hands that offered grace, through a thousand ordinary moments that added up to one extraordinary truth: I wasn’t alone.

He carried me back.

Not with force, but with love so persistent it broke through my shame. He carried me not because I had earned it, but because He chose me—always had. Like the parable told long ago, He left the ninety-nine to find the one. Me.

And even now, when I stray in mind or spirit, when the ache resurfaces or the weight returns, I remember: I am still the one He came for. Not just once, but every time I begin to drift.

I once was the lamb who wandered.

Now I am the one who was found. And still, He walks with me.

This is the story of Chrysalis. The story of Emmaus. The story of redemption told not just in words, but in the footsteps of a Savior who never stops walking toward the lost.

It is my story